Super U Podcast | Harnessing Artificial Intelligence with Greg Shove

Today, Erik sits down with the CEO of Section, Greg Shove. Section is an online business school for the age of AI that is helping tens of thousands of people become AI-literate. Greg founded Machine&Partners, an AI development lab that builds AI-powered apps and workflows for companies. He is also helping others understand all the stuff that the CEO never tells them, through his newsletter, Personal Math.

Need a sneak peek? Below are the main takeaways from the episode.

Episode Preview:

“It was a great company with a great product and an excellent customer experience. But it was also a tough business. Speaking of tough industries, EdTech is another challenging space. Reforming or disrupting education is incredibly difficult. I believe two industries in America are in dire need of disruption—healthcare and education—but they are also the hardest to change. The incumbent brands are incredibly powerful.

At Section, we experienced this firsthand. We built a strong product in business education. The company started as an online business school for executive education. It wasn’t accredited, so we didn’t offer MBAs, but our goal was to be more accessible, affordable, and better than other online executive education options—and we were. We also got lucky. We launched just as the pandemic hit, and with everyone in lockdown, demand surged.

However, I misread the signal. I assumed our success was entirely due to the strength of our product, but in reality, people were stuck at home, worried about their jobs, and eager to invest in their own upskilling. As a result, we went from zero to $10 million in revenue almost overnight, raised a significant amount of capital, and set our sights on scaling to $100 million as quickly as possible. That kind of rapid growth is exhilarating when it works, but when it doesn’t—and you’ve spent heavily to make it happen—it can be painful.

That’s exactly what happened at Section. We hit a rough patch that lasted 18 months, during which I had to dramatically downsize the company, laying off over 100 people in a single year. We had to stabilize our finances and extend our cash runway. This was between 2020 and 2022—a period of intense restructuring and reevaluation.

Then, on February 1, 2023, ChatGPT happened. I remember trying ChatGPT Plus and thinking, Holy shit. This is it. I needed this personally—I was 63 and wanted to work for another 10 years. But living in Silicon Valley, which has one of the most ageist work cultures in the world, I knew I needed a cognitive edge to stay competitive.

That’s when I realized this wasn’t just something I needed—it was also what Section needed to fuel its pivot. I had come to terms with the fact that disrupting business schools was nearly impossible; their brands were too powerful. But I saw AI fluency as the next accelerant for people, just as business education had been.

So, we went all in. And if you’ve been through pivots before, you know you have to pivot hard. You have to burn the bridge—you can’t keep one foot in and one foot out. That’s exactly what we did. We pivoted fast and made a bold move into this new direction.”

Interested in learning more about how to apply AI to your business?

Become an AI Leader in A Day is a free, virtual event designed to help professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs understand and apply AI to drive business success. Hosted by Section, Scott Galloway’s AI education company, this one-day program on April 3, 2025 brings together top AI practitioners and business strategists to teach four micro-workshops designed to break down AI’s real-world applications and help attendees become an AI leader in a day.

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The Super U Podcast is hosted by #1 bestselling author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman.